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McAuley: Mel adjustment will take time

West Brom defender Gareth McAuley says it will take time for the squad to adjust to the methods brought in by new head coach Pepe Mel.

Mel took over from Steve Clarke in January, and has since overseen two home draws with Everton and Liverpool, either side of a 4-3 defeat at Midlands rivals Aston Villa.

West Brom sit 16th in the Premier League table - just a point above the bottom three - and travel to Crystal Palace on Saturday for a crucial game, with Tony Pulis' side a place below them in the table on goal difference only.

And Northern Ireland international McAuley believes patience is required at The Hawthorns as West Brom's players become accustomed to Mel's style of play and management.

"It has been hard work on the training pitch getting the ideas across and into the team so everybody is doing the same thing in unison," he told the club's official website.

"That takes practice and the more we do it in training, the better we will become at it.

"It is a change in styles, as has been talked about, and it's the same as when we played the other way - the more we practiced it the more everyone knew their jobs and every day we're working on it, so hopefully we can get better and better."

McAuley went on to say that it is not just on the training ground where the squad and manager are working hard.

"We had a meeting last week," he said.

"It’s hard when you’re on the training pitch sometimes to get everything across but when you’re sitting down you can see things and talk about them so it’s easier.

"That was just about getting the understanding right. It was just a simple case of us getting his ideas on board and getting them clarified properly for ourselves so we knew what we were about and what we were doing.

"It certainly helped and it was positive from everybody's point of view."